Innovator. Entrepreneur. Mountain biking enthusiast. Marshall Mullen represents all three and then some. The 19-year-old Malibu resident is taking the mountain biking world by storm with his creative ideas, self-reliant approach and enthusiastic attitude.
While many of his peers are competing at the highest levels of competition in mountain biking, Mullen chose a different route, which has brought him to the cutting edge of a sport undergoing tremendous innovation. After attending Malibu Middle School through the sixth grade, Mullen’s parents, Rick and Jenny, gave him the opportunity to be home-schooled through high school.
The switch fit Mullen’s personality well as an independent self-learner who flourished in a stable environment, and soon after, at age 13, he found a new passion: mountain biking. In the intervening six years, Mullen’s interest has evolved into a successful business career in which he produces film projects, designs courses, invents new gear and generally sets his mind to anything related to mountain biking.
Mullen’s uncanny ability to think “outside the box” with new, unique and different ideas has led to sponsorships with mountain biking’s biggest names: Deity, Specialized, Oakley, WD-40, and Bonk Breaker. He personally built a pump track at Oakley’s headquarters near Laguna Beach, provides videos for websites such as pinkbike.com and vitalmtb. com, and writes for Decline magazine.
He conceptualizes ideas for mountain biking tracks, builds them and ultimately rides them upon completion. In his backyard amidst the Santa Monica Mountains, Mullen built his own course that includes jumps, wooden features, dirt features, berms and step-ups.
Mullen is a top-notch MTB (mountain biking) rider who rides four days a week in and around his busy work schedule. These include the diverse genres of MTB—dirt jumping, cross country, trail riding, downhill and pump tracks.
The Malibu Times caught up with Mullen after he arrived back home from a business trip to Whistler, Canada, the “mecca of mountain biking” as he described it.
Describe your passion for mountain biking.
I love mountain biking a lot. I have a big passion for it and it seems like every year it grows more and more. Aside from the pure love for ripping down a trail and all the different kinds of riding, I really like to express it in different ways. I like to show how I am envisioning it and portray it the way as I am seeing it. Other than riding that’s my biggest passion.
What is it like to work with your sponsors?
That’s another thing that makes it more interesting. Rather than do it all on your own, you have sponsors who allow me to do the sport the way I want. You get to ride all the good components, the parts and frames, and you also feel obliged to contribute back to the company, which to me is cool. I like to show them my movies and show off all their products. That’s what sponsors love. It adds a whole other aspect to what I do, which makes it way more interesting.
Mountain biking made its debut in X Games Munich two weeks ago. How big was that for the sport?
It was a pretty big thing to have mountain biking in the X Games. It’s been a topic and a lot of people have been wondering if mountain biking would ever be in the X Games. The fact that it has been in the X Games is huge. The sport is only going to grow from here and get bigger and bigger.
Where do you see yourself in five years?
To be honest, I haven’t looked five years down the road. I like to take it as they come. I’m not sure if this will become a full career but I just know that I love it right now. It seems like every day I have a new idea and project that I want to film. That right there keeps me going. Every day it gets better and more exciting. I might be even more excited off the track. I always have a new desire and something to do. I come up with an idea and then do it. I get to do it my own way.